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Oceanography

Eddies make ocean deserts bloom

Nature volume 394, pages 228–229 (1998)Cite this article

Phytoplankton require nutrients for growth and reproduction, and they need to have them in the euphotic zone, the sunlit ‘skin’ of the ocean where photosynthesis can take place. Traditionally, nutrient supply to the euphotic zone has been explained in terms of large-scale circulation over entire ocean basins. However, three papers1,3, two of them2,3 in this issue, invoke a complementary explanation — that energetic eddies, analogous to atmospheric weather systems, are a source of nutrients on a much smaller horizontal scale of several tens to hundreds of kilometres.

So where do these nutrients come from? Traditional explanations are unconvincing. Vertical diffusion is not the answer — estimates of vertical mixing rates5 in the upper thermocline, where there are strong vertical gradients, are an order of magnitude too small to balance the nutrient budget. Atmospheric input of nitrogen is significant near the coast, but relatively small over the centre of the subtropical gyre. Lateral input of nitrate (one of the principal nutrients used by phytoplankton) from neighbouring upwelling regions occurs along the flanks of the gyre, but this contribution peters out towards the centre6.

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Figure 1: Annual primary productivity (coloured values in g C m−2 yr−1), and upwards vertical velocity of water (contoured in m yr−1) in the North Atlantic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Oceanography Laboratories, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK

    Richard G. Williams

  2. the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Michael J. Follows

Authors
  1. Richard G. Williams
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  2. Michael J. Follows
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Williams, R., Follows, M. Eddies make ocean deserts bloom. Nature 394, 228–229 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/28285

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